394 



WILLAMETTE VALLEY. 



The men of the Klackamus village are rather taller and better- 

 looking than the Clatsop or Chinook Indians : thej belong to the 

 Callapuya tribe. The women and children are most of them crippled 

 and diseased. They have been quite a large tribe in former times, as 

 is proved by the crowded state of their burying-ground, which covers 

 quite a large space, and has a multitude of bones scattered around. 



Their mode of burial is to dig a hole, in which the body is placed, 

 with the clothes belonging to the individual : it is then covered up 

 with earth, and a broad head-board is placed upright, of from two to 

 six feet high, which is frequently painted or carved with grotesque 

 figures : all the personal property of the deceased is placed upon this, 

 consisting of wooden spoons, hats, tin kettles, beads, gun-barrels 

 bent double, and tin pots. Although they are very superstitious about 

 disturbing the articles belonging to the dead, yet all these have holes 

 punched in them, to prevent their being of any use to others, or a 

 temptation to their being taken off. It frequently happens that the 

 head-boards will not hold all the articles, in which case sticks are 

 used in addition. To rob their burying-grounds of bodies, is attended 

 with much danger, as they would not hesitate to kill any one who 

 was discovered in the act of carrying off a skull or bones. 



Of their medicine-men they have a great dread, and even of their 

 bones after death. Thus, a medicine-man was buried near this 

 burying-ground about a year before our visit to the country, whose 

 body the wolves dug up : no one could be found to bury his bones 

 again, and they were still to be seen bleaching on the surface of the 

 ground. 



It is no sinecure to be a medicine-man ; and if they inspire dread 

 in others, they are made to feel it themselves, being frequently 

 obliged to pay the forfeit of their own lives, if they are not successful 

 in curing their patients. The chief of the Klackamus tribe told Mr. 

 Drayton that some of his men had gone to kill a medicine-man, in 

 consequence of the death of his wife. These men afterwards 

 returned with a horse and some smaller presents from the medicine- 

 man, which he had paid to save his life. 



This rule equally applies to the -whites who prescribe for Indians, 

 an instance of which occurred a short time before our arrival, when 

 Mr. Black, a chief trader in one of the northern posts, was shot dead 

 in his own room by an Indian to whose parent (a chief) he had been 

 charitable enough to give some medicine. The chief died soon after 

 taking it, and Mr. Black paid the forfeit of his kindness with his 



